Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
On a more positive note, I'm hoping to have the last two movements of Balakirev's Bb minor sonata ready for the event. So my Russian stuff will be all Balakirev: Mazurka #6, Islamey, and the aforementioned sonata movements. I've touted the sonata many times before, but I'll do it again. OK, so it's not the Liszt B minor, but it's darn good and quite similar in some ways: moments of "transcendental" virtuosity interspersed with elegant, contemplative, melodic episodes; starts and ends quietly; a B in the key signature ; use of thematic material across different movements. Anyway, I don't want to labor the point. Here's the late Ronald Smith in a superb performance. The last movement starts around 16:30.
SiFi: I don't recall that any of these events (including competitions) have said when to arrive. (Have they?) As far as I remember, they've never done more than to tell us when stuff is, and leave it to us to decide when it's best to arrive.
BTW there have been some people who felt they not only didn't have to arrive the day before orientation or the day of orientation, nor early on the first day of the actual thing, but not necessarily till after they were supposed to play.
(One such person wound up winning.)
Well, I kind of expressed it badly. The schedule (see link below) tells us what day the orientation takes place but not what time. I do want to be there for the orientation, but I don't want to arrive the day before and find I have to sleep on the sidewalk because there isn't a room for me. Anyway, bit of a storm in a teacup, I realize. I'm mainly interested to find out who else is going; the festival/website organizers do not seem to be very well attuned to latency issues and standards!
BTW, you really have to tell us more about the guy who won a competition despite having not been there for his first round performance! Please, pretty please!!??
(As I've said about similar things, I don't like to "name names," but I'll just say, the guy was enough known and enough beloved that everybody was glad, more or less, to accommodate him when he arrived, which was something like an hour after he had been scheduled to go on.)
Congrats, Simon. Agree the Balakirev 2nd Sonata is as attractive as Liszt's. I don't dislike Islamey, but if I could learn one major work, I'd pick the Sonata. (Did Balakirev write the same sonata 3 times??) Looking forward to hearing all four movements.
Congrats, Simon. Agree the Balakirev 2nd Sonata is as attractive as Liszt's. I don't dislike Islamey, but if I could learn one major work, I'd pick the Sonata. (Did Balakirev write the same sonata 3 times??) Looking forward to hearing all four movements.
It's all up in the air now, my friend. I think what I'll end up with is two mazurkas and a warhorse. Nice balance there.
OK, you all. The PianoTexas website is hopping. We now have the complete lists of teacher and "amateur" participants, with bios and masterclass/concerto repertoires. We also have the masterclass schedule, which, even if I weren't participating, would give me frissons. Here's the link: http://www.pianotexas.org/ta_masterclass.asp.
Unfortunately, I got placed in the same class as Ken Iisaka. So I'm gonna look bad, even more so if the other performers in our group are hot stuff like him. The upside is we got Olga Kern, who is one of my heroes. I would have been happy with Dimitri Alexeev, but Olga was my first choice, or would have been had there been a choice. Now I just have to work hard in order to avoid disgracing myself in front of an artist who I deeply respect, not to mention the audience of expert pianists and lord knows who will be watching the live stream. That gravitational wave you just felt was me shaking in my boots.
Of my 3 repertoire pieces Tamas picked "Islamey" for the masterclass.
That gravitational wave you just felt was me shaking in my boots.
Of my 3 repertoire pieces Tamas picked "Islamey" for the masterclass.
Ugh, I’m happy for you and also very glad it’s not me. You’ll have to tell what she works on, if your willing. It’s always of great interest to me how such works are handled in a masterclass format.
OK, you all. The PianoTexas website is hopping. We now have the complete lists of teacher and "amateur" participants, with bios and masterclass/concerto repertoires. We also have the masterclass schedule, which, even if I weren't participating, would give me frissons. Here's the link: http://www.pianotexas.org/ta_masterclass.asp.
Unfortunately, I got placed in the same class as Ken Iisaka. So I'm gonna look bad, even more so if the other performers in our group are hot stuff like him. The upside is we got Olga Kern, who is one of my heroes. I would have been happy with Dimitri Alexeev, but Olga was my first choice, or would have been had there been a choice. Now I just have to work hard in order to avoid disgracing myself in front of an artist who I deeply respect, not to mention the audience of expert pianists and lord knows who will be watching the live stream. That gravitational wave you just felt was me shaking in my boots.
Of my 3 repertoire pieces Tamas picked "Islamey" for the masterclass.
FANTASTIC for you! Good Luck and I know you will do great!
That gravitational wave you just felt was me shaking in my boots.
Of my 3 repertoire pieces Tamas picked "Islamey" for the masterclass.
Ugh, I’m happy for you and also very glad it’s not me. You’ll have to tell what she works on, if your willing. It’s always of great interest to me how such works are handled in a masterclass format.
So I just found out that Olga Kern is performing Islamey two days after our masterclass. It's the final work in her distinguished artists recital. Now I'm really afraid, though she does seem like a kindhearted person so I'm hoping she'll let me down gently.
So I just found out that Olga Kern is performing Islamey two days after our masterclass. It's the final work in her distinguished artists recital. Now I'm really afraid...
No worries -- maybe she hasn't started working on it yet and doesn't know how it goes.
So I just found out that Olga Kern is performing Islamey two days after our masterclass. It's the final work in her distinguished artists recital. Now I'm really afraid...
No worries -- maybe she hasn't started working on it yet and doesn't know how it goes.
That's what I'm hoping. Better yet, she'll do a Mozart, memorize my performance by ear and reproduce it as the real thing in her recital. Phew, what a relief.
I'm surprised that this event has gone un-noticed by piano people. The PianoTexas festival this year has been wonderful. Many of the big guns are here: Iisaka, Slavin, Coaster, and a host of others. The three I mentioned will all be playing concertos Tuesday at 8:30 EDT with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. (I unfortunately did not qualify but I like to think I was close.) You all can watch live. Just go to http://www.pianotexas.org/ and click on Watch Live or check the schedule.
To get you started, here's the video of the first amateur recital, which included me and Ken and Coaster and which the president of the festival described as "phenomenal" (Coaster's up at around 25:00): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySKZppCnS3I&feature=youtu.be
EDITED AGAIN: OK, the Rach 2 is here. SiFi will be next, playing Islamey for Olga Kern's masterclass. It ends in an hour, so tune in between now and 12 PM CDT if you want to see him!
Thanks SiFi, coaster, for bringing this livestream opportunity to our attention! I really enjoyed last night's recital...I caught most of it I think, but then the livestream unfortunately cut off, which was odd because I'm pretty sure I was out of sync behind the actual live part, so it's a shame that the tech doesn't allow for the feed to continue until the laggards catch up. Have to be careful about that for the ones today.
; use of thematic material across different movements. Anyway, I don't want to labor the point. Here's the late Ronald Smith in a superb performance. The last movement starts around 16:30.
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/12283.png)
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/full/15854.png)
